Auto Balancing

I am kinda worried about this. I know that most of the footage was only from the press beta where they did not have too many people playing. But I really hope there is not too much Auto Balancing. One big issue I am afraid of is this. Does anyone know if there will be a "deserter" type debuff in the game? I just know I would hate it if I am destroying a team and someone leaves from the other team and I am then Auto Balanced to the losing team. I really hope 99% of the time they will pull someone new into the game instead of balancing the current teams.

Personally I'm not too worried about it, I'm sure there will be loads of people queing up for hot join pvp so it shouldn't be too big of a problem. Would suck if you did get auto balanced to the losing team but not a huge deal imo, would make me want to pull that epic come back.

---------- Post added 2012-03-03 at 04:12 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Larynx

I hope there won't be a deserter debuff. Stupidest idea ever.

Maybe a debuff is you frequently leave BGs, but the system in WoW is just terrible. Tor doesn't have any deserter debuffs, and the warzones are just fine.

Can someone explain this whole auto balancing thing to me? And has any of this been confirmed at all ?

Have you ever played a lobby fps game like TF2 or Counter Strike? Well there is a system on some servers where if the teams are unbalanced it drafts players from the larger team to the smaller team. It REALLLLLLLLLY sucks when you get drafted but its necessary or else the smaller team will just get dominated until there's no one left to fight. There is also sometimes a scramble feature when the teams are really unbalanced skill wise more than numbers.
Examples:
Game1: 10v10 2 people leave making 8v10 if no one joins in a set amount of time the game will randomly pick a player and make it 9v9
Game2: 10v10 again the first team has won the past 4 games in a row against the second team via a player or server launched vote the teams are scrambled randomly in hope to balance the distribution of skill.

Have you ever played a lobby fps game like TF2 or Counter Strike? Well there is a system on some servers where if the teams are unbalanced it drafts players from the larger team to the smaller team. It REALLLLLLLLLY sucks when you get drafted but its necessary or else the smaller team will just get dominated until there's no one left to fight. There is also sometimes a scramble feature when the teams are really unbalanced skill wise more than numbers.
Examples:
Game1: 10v10 2 people leave making 8v10 if no one joins in a set amount of time the game will randomly pick a player and make it 9v9
Game2: 10v10 again the first team has won the past 4 games in a row against the second team via a player or server launched vote the teams are scrambled randomly in hope to balance the distribution of skill.

That makes perfect sense thank you.

Now whats so bad about this? Sure it would suck to get drafted for a minute but it might be fun to join up with friends and then get put against them.

I see no issue with autobalancing... at all. And to be honest, i hate the WoW deserter thing where if you leave ONCE you get boned for like an hour. Maybe make it if you leave like 2 or 3 games in a row without completing one then you get the debuff, because i do hate it when ass holes just leave your games, it's awful.

Originally Posted by draykorinee

Youre in the mmo forums and you find mmos boring, Im heading on over to the twilight forums to add my unecessary and shallow 2 cents.

I see no issue with autobalancing... at all. And to be honest, i hate the WoW deserter thing where if you leave ONCE you get boned for like an hour. Maybe make it if you leave like 2 or 3 games in a row without completing one then you get the debuff, because i do hate it when ass holes just leave your games, it's awful.

The way it worked in the original guild wars was that you earned dishonor points, that accumulates.

If the game detects you are afking (via standing in one spot to long and pressing buttons) you get 1 dishonor point per minute.
If you left a game, you would get 5 dishonor points.
If someone reported you for leeching(afking) you would get 2 dishonor points. To prevent abuse of it though, the reporter got 2 dishonor unless 50% of the team agreed with him. The leecher then would be stripped of all points earned from that game.

Once you get to 10 dishonor points, you must wait 1 minute per dishonor point and any additional dishonor points until its cleared after one hour.

So you can wait 10 minutes, get more dishonor and have to wait 12.

Because of this, you rarely saw any afkers or leavers in guild wars, your only problem was bots mostly.

Last edited by Deyadissa; 2012-03-03 at 09:42 PM.

The most important thing to realize is, no matter what you experience you are never alone; no matter what you are struggling through, there is always someone who is more unfortunate.

Now whats so bad about this? Sure it would suck to get drafted for a minute but it might be fun to join up with friends and then get put against them.

"Put up against them"? I understand what you're saying, but a more realistic conclusion would be "Lose to them." The main reason people leave matches, especially in MMOs, is when their team isn't doing so great. Getting autodrafted to the enemy team after it gets a bunch of deserters is like working really hard on a group project in a college course, then being forced to join a group of lazy asses 3 days before the assignment is due because the only two decent students in their group ditched the course out of frustration, then getting an F because you were still overcome by people you were never supposed to be with in the first place.

It's a painful experience, and for me, it's never been remotely enjoyable. I sure hope they just pull new people in from lobbies.

"Put up against them"? I understand what you're saying, but a more realistic conclusion would be "Lose to them." The main reason people leave matches, especially in MMOs, is when their team isn't doing so great. Getting autodrafted to the enemy team after it gets a bunch of deserters is like working really hard on a group project in a college course, then being forced to join a group of lazy asses 3 days before the assignment is due because the only two decent students in their group ditched the course out of frustration, then getting an F because you were still overcome by people you were never supposed to be with in the first place.

It's a painful experience, and for me, it's never been remotely enjoyable. I sure hope they just pull new people in from lobbies.

As I stated in that thread, we have no idea if there is any benefit from being drafted from one team to another.

You could get double points or victories or something for being drafted, or win even if you lose.

The most important thing to realize is, no matter what you experience you are never alone; no matter what you are struggling through, there is always someone who is more unfortunate.

The way it worked in the original guild wars was that you earned dishonor points, that accumulates.

If the game detects you are afking (via standing in one spot to long and pressing buttons) you get 1 dishonor point per minute.
If you left a game, you would get 5 dishonor points.
If someone reported you for leeching(afking) you would get 2 dishonor points. To prevent abuse of it though, the reporter got 2 dishonor unless 50% of the team agreed with him. The leecher then would be stripped of all points earned from that game.

Once you get to 10 dishonor points, you must wait 1 minute per dishonor point and any additional dishonor points until its cleared after one hour.

So you can wait 10 minutes, get more dishonor and have to wait 12.

Because of this, you rarely saw any afkers or leavers in guild wars, your only problem was bots mostly.

This is a great idea!!!

Now I also dont like the deserter buff. But I just can already see me getting nervous when that Auto Balancing alert comes up. Whether you think its no big deal or not, NOBODY wants to be taken from the winning team to the losing team. Another thing I dont want to happen is go into PVP with 2 of my friends and then get separated from them when there are 2 single players on our team. I know battlefield 3 used to do that all the time. As long as it doesnt break groups up at all cost, I guess I can deal with it.

Im not trying to be negative or find flaws with the game. I just dont want my PVP ruined because a guy thinks his team as no chance to catch up. Thats all.

As I stated in that thread, we have no idea if there is any benefit from being drafted from one team to another.

You could get double points or victories or something for being drafted, or win even if you lose.

That seems pretty drastic... double points could be quite a bit if "Hot Join" is as literal as it sounds, considering Hot Joining could theoretically also come with 'Hot Leaving'. Because of this, you could get double points fairly often, causing a random, unfair advantage. I don't necessarily think winning even if you lose is a good tactic to avoid these issues either... Just my opinion, of course. I do like the GW1 dishonor point system, very effective. It could theoretically keep people from afking, but it still won't prevent necessary exits, and then necessary courses of action to balance the teams.

I still just suggest bringing new people in from the lobby looking to join a new match. Better to put up with half a bad match you just joined than work really hard for 3/4 of a match, then lose because someone had to leave on the other team, causing you to be autodrafted.

That seems pretty drastic... double points could be quite a bit if "Hot Join" is as literal as it sounds, considering Hot Joining could theoretically also come with 'Hot Leaving'. Because of this, you could get double points fairly often, causing a random, unfair advantage. I don't necessarily think winning even if you lose is a good tactic to avoid these issues either... Just my opinion, of course. I do like the GW1 dishonor point system, very effective. It could theoretically keep people from afking, but it still won't prevent necessary exits, and then necessary courses of action to balance the teams.

I still just suggest bringing new people in from the lobby looking to join a new match. Better to put up with half a bad match you just joined than work really hard for 3/4 of a match, then lose because someone had to leave on the other team, causing you to be autodrafted.

It's hard to find people from the lobby because people can select the games they want to join. People will see the red team has too little and they'll go somewhere else. Seen it done in many games unfortunately.

Winning while losing is not a bad solution, if you where winning anyway and got drafted why should you lose the victory because you got drafted?

The most important thing to realize is, no matter what you experience you are never alone; no matter what you are struggling through, there is always someone who is more unfortunate.

If its a non-rated match, what does it matter? Are there rewards to gather? Moneyz to be earned? I dont know. Just curious. In a rated match i can imagien you'd want to be grouping with friends anyway. So its really just a random-warzone problem. Cant really fix it in any satisfying way. But a penalty-system is the greater of the evils, its an unimaginitive idea that someone should be punished for not enjoying the game, rather then making the game enjoyable. Or atleast bareable.

If its a non-rated match, what does it matter? Are there rewards to gather? Moneyz to be earned? I dont know. Just curious. In a rated match i can imagien you'd want to be grouping with friends anyway. So its really just a random-warzone problem. Cant really fix it in any satisfying way. But a penalty-system is the greater of the evils, its an unimaginitive idea that someone should be punished for not enjoying the game, rather then making the game enjoyable. Or atleast bareable.

Most people cant do rated matches. I used to do them all the time for example, but since I got a full time blue collar job, it's just not possible anymore. Everyone leaves for someone who is more active. It's difficult with 2 let alone 4 people.

Guild Wars 2 is designed for the casuals in mind, they'll still have hardcore content... but they should not have to ignore casual content just because its casual.

Last edited by Deyadissa; 2012-03-03 at 10:27 PM.

The most important thing to realize is, no matter what you experience you are never alone; no matter what you are struggling through, there is always someone who is more unfortunate.